How A Former CIA Officer’s Efforts To Get Congress To Investigate Rendition And Torture Failed

Over at Al Jazeera America, Jason Leopold has this lengthy, must-read story about former CIA operative Sabrina De Sousa and the “proper channels” she went through to blow the whistle on the botched rendition of a radical Egyptian cleric from the streets of Italy.

De Sousa has never publicly discussed all the efforts she undertook to alert government officials and lawmakers that Abu Omar’s kidnapping was a “colossal mistake” and convince them to investigate her claims of wrongdoing, which implicate top CIA officials. She told Al Jazeera that she first contacted top Bush administration officials, but received no response. In 2009, hoping the response would be different under Obama, she disclosed to then-CIA Director Leon Panetta and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton what she says are troubling details about her treatment by the U.S. government in the aftermath of her whistleblowing. But, like the Bush administration officials before them, they also ignored her pleas, De Sousa says, and the CIA turned her into a “scapegoat” while the executive branch looked away.